1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for switching and displaying different screens on which a plurality of icons are arranged and displayed on display apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In many information processing apparatus with a display screen, the display of icons is used for indicating setup items or a setup state of various functions or an operational state of the apparatus. In order to display information as much as possible on a limited display area of a cellular phone, for example, or in order to effectively display both of the picked-up image and the playback image from a camera and a state of the apparatus in a digital camera, icons often replace character strings. In a DVD recorder, a known example is that an icon is attached to a character string of an item name for the purpose of facilitating recognition of each item of selection items on a menu screen. According to a hierarchical structure of a user interface, or in order to restrict the screen area, all of a plurality of icons indicating the state or items are seldom displayed on a display screen at one time. In many cases, some icons are switched and displayed in order according to operation of the apparatus or operation of a user.
Assume that an apparatus switches between at least two screens comprising a screen A which arranges and displays a plurality of icons at a particular place in a screen area and a screen B which arranges and displays a plurality of icons different from those in the screen A at the same place or near the same place in the screen area on which icons are arranged in the screen A. In this case, when the two screens are switched in a moment of time, a user may have the following problems.
First, it is not easy for a user to recognize that the screens are switched. This is because the screen A and the screen B have similar configurations and the difference between icons is not as easy to recognize as the difference between character strings.
Second, the user may misunderstand that a group of icons on the screen A and a group of icons on the screen B are strongly related with each other more than they actually are. This is because the icons displayed in the same place on the screen A and the screen B are felt by the user as corresponding to each other one for one. Actually, an icon on screen A does not necessarily correspond to an icon on screen B that is located in the same place as the icon on screen A and may have a completely different meaning.